Harold Schechter - Ripped from the Headlines!: The Shocking True Stories Behind the Movies Most Memorable Crimes

Praise for Harold Schechters Hells Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

AN AMAZON CHARTS BESTSELLER

In Harold Schechters lucid and well-researched Hells Princess , Gunnesshis ruthless, devious protagonist and, according to the books subtitle, a butcher of mendeserves a prominent place in the annals of Americas serial killers.

Wall Street Journal

With riveting and thorough detail, Schechter tracks the mystery of Lampheres culpability in the arson and closes with a possibly related murder that took place decades after the 1908 house fire. True-crime fans will be hooked from the start.

Publishers Weekly

Featuring previously undiscovered details and rich historical context, this authoritative account firmly establishes Schechter as one of Americas leading crime chroniclers. A fascinating and dramatic page-turner that will be a new favorite among true-crime fans.

Kirkus Reviews

[Schechters] goal is to help us understand not just what his subjects did but also why they did what they didwhat internal torments and psychological traits drove them to become brutal killers. A sharply written, compelling account from a proven winner.

Booklist

Hells Princess is an excellent, spellbinding read. Schechter is a master storyteller and a true ethnographer of the old Midwest.

New York Journal of Books

This biography of a prolific and brutal serial killer will be of interest to Midwestern regional history buffs as well as true-crime fans.

Library Journal

Schechters deep research and storytelling flair ensure readers will hang in to see if he can solve this century-old puzzle.

Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine

The best books regarding criminality involve serial killers, and that is certainly the case for the best true-crime books of 2018... Harold Schechter delivers a full-length background and overview of one of the worst murderers in American history that no one has heard of.

Criminal

This true-crime narrative does justice to the larger-than-life Belle Gunness and her fascinating context, keeping the reader immersed in the story even as we recoil from its many horrors.

CrimeReads

Hells Princess takes its place among Schechters other true-crime classics as the definitive rendering of one of the most beguiling and brutal of all female serial killers. His gruesome page-turner about Belle Gunness, grounded in meticulous historic research, confirms his reputation as one of the top true-crime writers of our time.

Katherine Ramsland, Psychology Today

Harold Schechters Hells Princess had me on the edge of my seat to the last page! Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyles The Hound of the Baskervilles , Schechters hound that is always ready to pounce is Belle Gunness, Americas most notorious female serial killer. Schechters achievement is humanizing this inhuman monster, while making us feel the sexual neediness and loneliness urging Belles victims to give up everything to get into her bed. How the case ultimately turns out is a seminal event in jurisprudence written by one of Americas greatest storytellers and historians.

Fred Rosen, author of Murdering the President: Alexander Graham Bell and the Race to Save James Garfield

Harold Schechter demonstrates why he is the dark prince master of American true-crime history, in this first definitive account of notorious female serial killer Belle Gunness and her human slaughterhouse murder farm.

Peter Vronsky, author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters

ALSO BY HAROLD SCHECHTER

NARRATIVE NONFICTION

Killer Colt: Murder, Disgrace, and the Making of an American Legend

The Devils Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century

The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder That Shook the Nation

Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal

Hells Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

NONFICTION

Psycho USA: Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of

Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment

Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer

Fiend: The Shocking True Story of Americas Youngest Serial Killer

Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster

Depraved: The Shocking True Story of Americas First Serial Killer

Deranged: The Shocking True Story of Americas Most Fiendish Killer!

Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho

The Whole Death Catalog: A Lively Guide to the Bitter End

The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the Worlds Most Terrifying Murderers

FICTION

The Tell-Tale Corpse

The Mask of Red Death

The Hum Bug

Nevermore

Outcry

Dying Breath

Text copyright 2020 by Harold Schechter

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Little A, New York

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Little A are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781542041805 (hardcover)

ISBN-10: 1542041805 (hardcover)

ISBN-13: 9781542041829 (paperback)

ISBN-10: 1542041821 (paperback)

Cover design by Faceout Studio, Jeff Miller

First edition

For the families of my wonderful nieces:

Beth, Avi, Ben, and Adam Davidovich

Ilene, Phil, Seth, and Justin Lewis

CONTENTS

AUTHORS NOTE

I n the far-distant past, when boomers like me were kids, there was only one way to see a movie that you had failed to catch in theaters. You waited until it showed up on TV, where it would be interrupted every twenty or so minutes by commercials and, more often than not, edited with a cleaver to fit into a programming slot shorter than the original running time. So its a source of unceasing wonderment to me that I now live in a moment when virtually every movie I want to see is instantly available on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, or any of the other excellent streaming services, not to mention on DVD and Blu-ray. This miraculous facet of the present age enabled me to rewatch (or, in a few cases, see for the first time) all of the movies covered in the following pages, and it is my hope that my necessarily brief treatments of these films will inspire readers to do the same.

FOREWORD

T he 1956 thriller The Wrong Man opens with an overhead shot of what appears to be a cavernous soundstage completely shrouded in darkness, except for an illuminated slice of the floor. Into the light steps the tiny silhouette of a rotund gentleman who comes to a halt and begins to talk in an unmistakable British voice:

This is Alfred Hitchcock speaking. In the past, I have given you many kinds of suspense pictures. But this time, I would like you to see a different one. The difference lies in the fact that this is a true story, every word of it. And yet, it contains elements that are stranger than all the fiction that has gone into many of the thrillers that Ive made before.